


Human Enough for Me

by Skytheartfreak



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dehumanization, M/M, Mental Health Issues, More tags when I think of them, Science Fiction, Self-Esteem Issues, Slow To Update, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:46:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23324185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skytheartfreak/pseuds/Skytheartfreak
Summary: In the year 2050, everything went to shit. Natural disasters shook the earth, killing millions, and a third world war destroyed huge amounts of civilization, dropping the population from almost 10 billion to only 5 billion. One man was able to stop the fighting temporarily, but this isn't his story. We jump to 2134, and the story of a young clone, the overconfident bastard man called 72, as he tries to convince the people around him that he's fully human.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Kudos: 6





	1. Awake

I wish I could tell you what I am, but at the moment I'm not quite sure. Because right now, I don't even know my own name. I have a head full of memories, but I know they're not mine. I don't think the same way as the person these memories belong to, but I look the same. I have memories of school that I never attended, friends I never had, and a war I never fought in.

The first thing I see is a bootup window, like a computer of some kind.  Subject 72, Fully Operational. I sit up, slightly put off by the bootup window that quickly disappears. I look around and find myself in a completely white room, without so much as scuff marks on the floor. I get up to walk around, but I find it's a little tricky. Is my entire body new? I can't think on it for long before a voice comes on over an intercom.

“Number 72, can you hear me?” the voice asks.

“Loud and clear.” I respond, voice weak and barely able to form the words.

“Vocal abilities are strong… Okay 72, are you aware of your situation?”

“I'm guessing I'm a lab rat. And judging by the memories I know aren't mine I'm guessing I'm a clone.”

“We prefer to refer to you as Variants.” another voice says.

“Yeah, like that’s any better.” I respond, sarcastically.

“Well, 72, what you’re called isn’t up to you.” the second voice retorts. “God, why can't this one just be an information sponge like all the others?” 

“You gonna let me out, or at least face me?” I ask, spinning around in place. “Do we usually bite? I wouldn’t know.”

“Oh god, is this thing actually sentient? When did we figure that shit out?” the second voice groans.

“Mac, be professional!” the first voice. So their name is Mac.

“Yeah Mac, I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on. Sorry if you don’t like how I carry myself.”  
“I don’t get paid enough for this shit…” Mac grumbles. “You sure talk a lot for someone with fresh vocal cords!”

I bet we’d get along if they’ll treat me like a human. I bet we’ll become friends regardless, barring we never see each other again. “I think I’m all warmed up now, actually. So now you'll never get a moment of silence.”

“Jesus christ, is it gonna get worn out?” a third voice asks. 

“Ah, so I’m an ‘It”, am I?” I inquire. “That’s nice to know. I sure like being dehumanized- or, I guess I’m not human, am I?”

“We’re shutting the comm off now, 72.” the first voice butts in. At that moment, a short man enters the room. I take the time to save the audio I’ve gathered and catalog the voices.

“Good afternoon, 72.” I recognize the third voice. “Are you up to take a walk?”

“Do I have a choice?” I respond, before I think about it a moment. “Wait, of course I don’t.”

The man nods. “Let us go.” he turns around, gesturing for me to follow. I’m not inclined to oppose. We leave the white, sterile room and walk down a light grey hallway. There are doors scattered along the sides of the hallways, about 15 feet apart. The rooms aren’t very big, then.

“So, you gonna tell me where we’re going?” I lean around the man’s shoulder in an attempt to get his attention. He ignores me. “How many times have you done this? Decanted clones, I mean?”

“I have been responsible for the last 30 Variants.” He replies. “You are by far the most agitating.” 

“Oh wow, I’ve already accomplished something.” I smirk. “Didn’t think I’d ever get the opportunity- though, I suppose I don’t know what you have in store for me.” 

“No worries 72, I can assure you we have quite an interesting task for you.”

“Oh goodie.” I cackle. "Can't wait to wreak havoc on humanity."

"Actually, 72, you'll be doing ambassador work." I recognize the first voice, and see a tall, lanky woman walking down the hallway after us, followed suit by a man in an oversized hoodie and skinny jeans with caramel skin, emerald green eyes, and a fixed scowl. I’m guessing that’s Mac.

“Even better suited for my evil ambitions.” I respond. All three were getting irritated now.

“72 ,could you  _ please _ cooperate?” the woman asks.

“Fine...” I sigh, looking wistfully to the side. “You people are no fun.”

“How the hell is it that every time we do this, the Variants are less and less like the Original?” Yep, that was definitely Mac. 

“Oh no, you’ve created a unique individual.” I mock him.

“Can we terminate this one?” Mac asked the woman.

“Mac, this is one of the most promising Variants we’ve ever had.” she mutters to him.

“You know I can hear you, right?” I whisper, leaning in between them.

“Jesus fuck-!” Mac yells, jumping back. 

“By the way, what are your names?” I ask, pointing to the two wearing white. “I want to remember you when I take over the world.”

“You have no need to know our-”  
“That’s Andrew.” Mac points to the short man, then the woman, “and that’s Rachel.” The two of them look at him. “What? You gave away _my_ name.”

Rachel sighs. “I went over this Mac, that was an accident.”

“I’ve been at this job for far less time than you, yet I know the protocol better?” Mac says, sarcastically, “Tell me how that works, Rache.”

She shakes her head before turning back to attention. “Let’s keep going.”

“Fine by me.” Mac responds, falling into formation with the other two around me. The more he talks, the more I want to be friends. I need to get him to shut up if that’s the case; that clearly isn’t going to go anywhere. I decide to save all of their faces before I forget.


	2. Puzzles

“Training time.” Mac sighs as he opens my door.  
“Didn’t even knock? Rude.” I flash a smile at him. He ignores it.  
“Come on, Rachel’s waiting.” He grumbles, turning to start back down the hall.  
“Aw, c'mon, talk to me! I never get to leave my room, what’s been going on?”  
“Nothing that concerns you.” He says through gritted teeth.   
“Hey, I just want to stay up to date on news. Is that too much to ask?”  
“Don’t you have the entire internet in your brain?” He spits, “Can’t you just look up some news outlet?”  
“I would if I had connection here.” I reply, which is half true. Most of the facility is an internet deadzone, but I also want to talk to someone. I want these people to get that I’m a person, however I can. If that means nagging them into believing me, so be it.   
“I know where all of the dead zones are, 72. This isn’t one of them. You can look at the news yourself.”  
“Really?” I question, unconvinced. “How long have you even been working here?”  
“Long enough to know where the internet dead zones are.”  
"How do I know you're telling the truth?"  
"Pull up the internet." He glares at me. "Because you're not gonna trick me into taking out my phone."  
"I am shocked that you assume I'd try to trick you!" I say, dramatically bringing my hand to rest over my heart. He rolls his eyes and returns his focus forward.   
After a few moments of silence I decide to listen to some music. Since HomoTech decided to start making clones before the technology caught up, particularly in the reconstruction of the brain, there are major flaws. To counteract this, they decided to supplement the parts of the brain they couldn’t replicate with a computer called a Cortex, which, among keeping me alive and letting me think, also gives me access to the internet. But there are still flaws, like the fact that I have to manually save my memory every couple hours, though I could probably figure out how to autosave it. The worst downside, though, is that my hearing’s a lot more sensitive, so I can’t listen to any loud or synthesized music, which sucks since I’m a fan of heavy bass and drums. But at least I have old music. Music from the early-to-mid 20th century has a lot of big sound, but it’s all muted and fuzzy because of the recording equipment, so it’s safe for me to listen to.   
I put my music on shuffle and "Blue Moon" by Frank Sinatra comes on. I bounce as I walk to the rhythmic brass bopping along with Sinatra's smooth voice.  
"Blue moon, you saw me standing alone," I sing along to myself, "without a love in my heart, without a dream of my own."  
We eventually make it to the pretty much the other side of the facility, where the training rooms are. I'm not sure what happened to architecture and building layout in the past 80 years, but nothing about the design of this facility makes sense to me. Everything important is super far apart, and none of the department placements seem to have any rhyme or reason to them. Unless that's intentional, which would still be weird.  
The training rooms are a fair size, maybe 30 feet wide and deep, and 15 feet tall. The walls and ceiling are all an off white-ish gray and the floor is slightly darker. Every surface is slightly springy, but I couldn't tell you why. I imagine there used to be some sort of physical training in here, but now it's mostly mental training. I had a very brief training session in self defence, enough to hold a fight with an unarmed person, but not enough to overpower anyone in case I "went batshit and decided to rebel," as Mac put it.  
Today we have a table and two chairs set up. Most of my training courses are focused on plain negotiation, but I had a couple on sabotage a week or two ago. Because they decided to replicate the memories of the person they cloned me from, a famous negotiator named Matthew Anston - who the guys at HomoTech tend to refer to as The Original - who tried to single-handedly de-escalate global tensions leading up to the third World War in 2050, I've been catching on pretty quickly. Most of the training is a formality, to make sure they didn't accidentally get rid of any information when they cloned His brain. But some things He was never trained in, or was morally opposed to doing.   
Today there's a puzzle out. It's one of those with the 4 rings and the 3 posts where you have to move all of the rings to another post without putting any ring on top of one smaller than it. Rachel is seated in one of the chairs, and after a moment of me standing by the door she gestures for me to sit down.  
I stride over to the table and take the open seat. "So, you want me to do a puzzle?"  
"That is correct." She replies calmly. "Are you familiar with this puzzle?"  
"Yeah, it's not too hard." I answer nonchalantly. "Matt used to have to do these all the time to test his problem solving and comprehension."  
“Care to do it for us now?” She inquires, gesturing to the puzzle. I give her a small nod and get to work. Smallest to peg 2, 2nd to peg 3, smallest on top of that, 3rd to peg 2, smallest back to peg 1, 2nd to peg 2, smallest to peg 2, biggest to peg 3, smallest to peg 1 again, 2nd to peg 3, smallest to peg 2, 2nd to peg 1, smallest back to peg 1, 3rd to peg 3, smallest to peg 2, 2nd to peg 3, smallest to peg 3.  
“Done.” I smile. Rachel nods.  
"Good." She says. "Now, onto the next one."  
We sit there for an hour, Rachel giving me puzzle after puzzle to complete. It's not much more than busy work for me, even without help from the Cortex. Most of the puzzles are the sort you have to deconstruct by pushing in tiles or pulling out certain sections, and I get through about ten of them before Rachel gives a firm nod, and says “That’s all for today.”  
Great. A trek to the other side of the facility for an hour of playing with puzzles.  
“That’s it?” I ask her, annoyance creeping into my voice. “Does this even have anything to do with my so-called ‘training’ you have me doing?”  
“It’s testing your cognitive function.” She replies simply. "We need to make sure that there aren't any issues with your capacity to understand, analyze, and retain information."  
"If you're so uncertain about the technology, you could've just… I don't know, waited to start this project?”  
“Starting this project despite our… limited…. Knowledge of some components of the human brain, was in the best interests of the company. Though the more time I spend with you the more I regret agreeing to that decision, given the drastic changes in personality our shortcomings have caused.”  
"Gee, thanks." I grumble. "Nice to know my creation was a regrettable decision."  
"Mac, could you just take him back already?" She sighs tiredly. "I don't have enough energy for this."  
"Come on." Mac says to me, turning to leave. I growl a little under my breath as I follow him back out into the hall.   
"What's her problem?" I ask myself, almost too quiet to hear.   
"She wasn't trained to do this," Mac responds. How did he hear me? "When she signed up we didn't think we'd have actual sentient people for years to come. But here you are, a pain in our collective asses."  
I nod a little, and the pair of us silently agree not to talk for the rest of the way back.


	3. Assignment

"You're getting your assignment today." Mac greets me as he looms in the doorway of my small, plain room. "Come on."  
I stand up from my spot on my bed and he turns to bring me down a set of hallways I've never seen before. In recent weeks he's stopped calling me by my number, instead not referring to me at all. I like to think that means he cares, but I'm a little hesitant to believe that. He rarely shows much emotion, and distances himself from pretty much everyone.   
It takes about 5 minutes, but now we're on a helipad. Outside. God, how I've missed seeing the sky above my head. It's cold, I realize, which isn't surprising since it's the middle of winter, and I idly wish I had a coat.   
On the helipad waiting for us is a tall, important looking woman with cold silver eyes, tan skin and short brown hair. She's dressed in a bomber jacket of sorts with a variety of badges, I recognize one as the symbol for the New European Union, and one as the symbol for the World Peace Embassy. There are a few others, one with the symbol for the United Nations, which is now effectively disbanded, and a couple of old country flags, Greece and the Czech Republic. Must be where her family was from.  
"Ah, Mr. Stevens. How are you?" The woman greets Mac.   
"Same as always, Ms. Svoboda." he responds, sighing a little.  
"And this is the newest Variant?" She asks, directing her attention towards me now. I force myself to smile a little in response.  
"Yep, number 72. It's tattooed right here on my neck in big, bold font so you don't lose me." I respond, my fake smile turning into more of a smirk.  
Mac grumbles a little, before gesturing to me. "Svoboda, this is Variant 72, the single most infuriating individual I have ever known."  
I give a little bow at the introduction. Svoboda quirks an eyebrow at Mac.  
"Did Andrew forget to mention that he's sentient?" I can see a hint of a smile creeping across his face.   
“He?” Svoboda laughs nervously, shifting her gaze between Mac and I.   
“72 insists that we acknowledge him as no less than human, or he won’t cooperate with us.” He says with that same almost-smile on his face. “I doubt he’ll cooperate with you, either, if you refuse to do the same.”  
“This is going to make a lot of people unhappy…” Svoboda grumbles, running a hand through her hair. “Well, let’s go.”  
She turns around and walks towards her auto. I recognize the logo as Mercedes-Benz, which surprises me a little. Lots of large brands went bankrupt during the war, so it’s nice to see familiar names after all of this time. She sits in the driver’s seat, while I climb into the back. She taps an address into the directory, and the auto lifts off of the ground. I look out the window as Mac turns to reenter the facility, which slowly fades into the distance as we head towards…  
"Where exactly are we going?" I ask Svoboda a few minutes after we leave.  
"We're going to the European branch of the World Peace Embassy." She replies rather bluntly. "If you are, indeed, fully sentient, as Mr. Stevens suggested, you… may want to prepare yourself for the… backlash this development will cause."  
"Great, more people who are gonna hate me for existing." I sigh, slouching back in my seat.  
The car goes silent for a few minutes after that, before Svoboda speaks again, asking if I'm aware of the current political climate of the world.  
"Um, everyone hates each other?" I offer after a moment of thought. "Or do you want me to list all of the billion different wars and conflicts going on right now?"  
"That won't be necessary." She insists. "Are you fully up to date?"  
"I have access to pretty much all of the information on the planet right now." I respond as snarkily as I can manage. “Of course I’m up to date. I’m more up to date than the news outlets! I can tell you what’s going on in Melbourne, Australia right now.”  
“That won’t be necessary either.” she sighs. She sounds increasingly exhausted every time she opens her mouth.  
Neither of us talk for the rest of the ride. I put my music on shuffle and Anything Goes by Cole Porter comes on first. I hum along and tap my feet lightly, and let myself zone out for the next half hour until the auto comes to an abrupt halt. I look out the window to see a tall grey building with a big pavilion in front of it, trees lining the concrete on either side and an old-looking water fountain in the middle. I can see a tall-looking man sitting on a bench on the left side of the park reading a book.  
I hear Svoboda let out a long, pained sigh as she opens her door. I quickly do the same, stepping out onto the sidewalk in front of the large building. Across the archway above a pair of tall doors is a sign that reads "World Peace Embassy- Prague" in bold lettering. The man on the bench looks over to us when he hears Svoboda slam her door closed, quickly standing up and walking over to us.  
"Ms. Svoboda." He greets her first, then turns his attention to me. "This is the new Variant?"  
"Yes, Mr. Dench, this is him." She sighs, gesturing to me vaguely. The man, Dench, gives her an odd look. "I was informed when I arrived that Variant 72 is sentient and does not comply with anyone who does not address him as human.   
Dench's expression changes to less confusion and more mild anger. "They never said anything about sentient variants when we contracted them." He grumbles under his breath, then he looks me in the eyes, "When we contracted the Variants project I was told that you things were meant to be equipment to aid in negotiations. I don't care if you can think, I am still going to treat you as such. If you take issue with that, that’s your own problem.”  
The two of them start walking towards the building, and I grudgingly follow suit. I don’t want to listen to this asshole, but I have a horrible feeling that he’ll make my life a lot worse if I don’t. I think, in passing, that I’m probably gonna die while I’m with these people.


	4. Not an 'It'

“Where the fuck is it?” Dench practically screams inside. I’ve been MIA for the past half hour, hiding on the roof. I’m sitting next to the vent, so I can hear snippets of conversation from all over the Embassy building; but I don’t think I’d even need to be next to the vent to hear Dench’s shrieks. Half of Europe can probably hear him with how loud he’s being.   
I know the longer I stay up here, the madder he’ll be when he finds me. I don’t really care about that right now - that’s a problem for future me. I just needed to get away from him, from being called broken and defective over and over again, from him trying his damndest to convince me that I’m not allowed to be my own person. I find myself missing the HomoTech facility more often than not. They didn’t know how the hell to deal with me, but at least they let me be my own person. Dench is determined to make me behave like all of the other Variants, just a mindless husk of a person.   
“Sir, we’ve swept the entire facility,” I hear someone say, presumably to Dench. “We don’t know where he went.”  
“You don’t have to refer to that thing as a human when it’s not around, Mr. Williams.” I recognize Dench’s voice. “Have we checked the area around the facility yet?”  
“N-no, sir, I’ll let everyone else know to do that.”  
“That thing is important!” Dench yells. “We didn’t invest billions in this science project to lose one of the fucking clones!”  
“Let’s check the roof.” I hear one person say, closer to me than Dench was. Shit. I look around frantically for anywhere to hide, before remembering that there are people going out onto the grounds, as well. I resign to defeat, since they’re gonna find me, either way. I move out of sight of the door and draw my legs up to my chest and rest my head on my knees. Might as well have a few moments of peace before the shitstorm. I can hear four sets of footsteps coming up the stairs now, followed by the door swinging open. I put on a stopwatch to see how long it takes them to find me.   
“Alright, fan out. He has to be somewhere.” One of them says to the others. All four sets of footsteps seem to be moving away from me. 15 seconds. One of the sets of footsteps starts to make its way closer to me. 36 seconds. It takes another 20 seconds before the person declares “I found him!” and grabs my arm. I don’t fight back - it’ll just be worse if I do. The person, a short woman wearing thin-rimmed glasses and a light blue suit, pulls me to my feet and continues to hold onto my arm for the 3 minutes it takes to get back to Dench. He looks fucking pissed, hazel eyes full of rage.   
“How defective are you?” He yells at me, clearly trying to keep himself from either grabbing me or punching me.  
“I’m not defective, I can just think for myself.” I hiss at him. “And I think that you’re an ass that I shouldn’t have to listen to.”  
He’s practically fuming now, hands shaking violently. He turns and storms off, yelling behind him to order the girl holding onto my arm to bring me back to my room, which is admittedly nicer than my room back at the HomoTech facility. It’s a few square meters bigger, and I have a desk and chair to sit at. They didn’t give me anything else, but since I have the Cortex I don’t really need anything else. I have the entire internet at my disposal- books, TV and movies, games, music - I’ll probably spend the rest of today zoned out playing Fallout 4, unless Dench decides to come in and start yelling at me. I settle into my chair, a big, cushioned swivel seat, and boot up the game. The familiar menu music begins to play after just a moment, and the scene of the workshop and power armor greets me. I load up my save and wait a few moments for it to load. Finally, Diamond City loads in.   
Playing like this is better than ever playing on a screen, since it plays more like VR than anything else. It feels kind of like I’m really here - I have surround sound and full visuals of the entire environment, and the movement controls are basically just the same as how it would be to just walk normally. I installed a fuck ton of mods that let me do things like climb, and I did a little bit of editing to make the scenery even more realistic. It’s a lot more immersive, and I’m fairly certain I’ve worked out all of the bugs in my copy, and it’s a nice little bit of nostalgia from Matt’s life. It was old by the time he was in middle school, and it was really hard to find a copy, let alone a console to play it on, but he did, and he was pretty into it in seventh grade. He liked to analyze all of the different outlooks of each of the factions, and he liked to spend a lot of time in Goodneighbor. It’s nice to find there are still some similarities between him and I - I’ve spent hours in Goodneighbor, sitting in the Third Rail listening to music, talking to all of the townspeople, or just sitting on top of the courthouse, looking across the Commonwealth. One of the mods I installed adds plants and foliage growing over all of the buildings. It gives the game a The Last of Us 2 vibe, another favorite of mine but not a very replayable one.  
I also love Diamond City, if for nothing else just for Takahashi and Nick Valentine. It feels nice to see communities built up from the rubble of a nuclear wasteland. While all of the nuclear warfare in real life didn’t cause the crazy mutated creatures that are the ghouls and supermutants, it did level cities and leave hundreds of millions of people homeless. Seeing images of 2070s Chicago and Dallas reminds me of the Commonwealth, with towns inside of stadiums and criminal gangs roaming the streets, terrorizing anyone who isn’t safe inside of the heavily armed mini-cities. Slowly, cities got rebuilt, governments were reinstated, and order was slowly brought back. Sometimes I wish Matt could have seen the people rebuild themselves after all of that devastation - instead, he was left with a cliffhanger ending, unsure of what would become of humanity after he died.   
I’m not interrupted for three hours, until someone knocks on my door to bring me food. It’s a short woman, maybe 19, with jet black hair and a sleeve of tattoos on her left arm. She hands me a paper bag, I mutter a ‘thank you’ and she scurries off down the hall. Everyone’s so fucking jumpy around me. It’s started to sting a little- no one talks to me, other than to let me know if I’m needed somewhere. I was hoping that there would be some people that would want to talk to me; maybe Dench told them not to talk to me - maybe that’s wishful thinking. I just… need to find someone to talk to.  
I suddenly get an idea; it’s a bad idea, it probably won’t even work, but I think it’s the best bet I have right now. I need to do a little bit of digging.


	5. Friends?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 72 needs to get away, so he does

_ You started a conversation with Mac Stevens. _

**Is this the right number for Mac Stevens?-**

**-Yeah… who is this?**

**That's not important right now. Are you able to meet me at the library in Prague tomorrow at 1?-**

**-This sounds suspicious…**

**-How do I know you're not some sort of old-school horror movie villain who wants to drug me and steal my kidney?**

**Not knowing is half of the fun, is it not?-**

**-Fair enough...**

**-Sure, I don't have anything to lose**

_ Mac Stevens is Offline. _

I let out a sigh of relief, falling back to lean on the wall. The hard part's over, now I just have to hope he actually stays when he sees me. He's the only person that's ever treated me like a human being. At best I was treated like a disobedient dog at HomoTech and at worst i'm treated like a broken robot at the Embassy. I just… need to get away, even if it is just for the day.

When tomorrow comes, it's easy to sneak out. I slip out the window of my room; it's one of those windows that doesn't open all the way so that people can't fall out of or crawl through them, but they apparently don't appreciate my skills as an escapist, because I can squeeze through, despite my slightly ridiculous height. Seriously, no one needs to be over six feet tall. Matt probably could've been a good basketball player if he knew how to play any sports.

I climb down the fire escape, careful not to get spotted by anyone. It takes a few minutes longer than it should to get out of the gate without being seen. There aren't many security cameras in the building itself, which makes it tricky to guess where anyone is. But, I eventually get there. I pull up a map of the city once I'm out, and start towards the library. It's a mile away- the time is 11:52 right now, so I have plenty of time to get there. 

It takes 40 minutes to get to the library. The building is about 5 stories tall, all stone columns and stained glass. The doors are strong oak frames surrounding delicate glass panels, handles wrought iron forged into beautiful curving spirals. I take a moment as I enter to appreciate the smell of all of the books, old and new. While physical books are a lot more uncommon now than when Matt was alive, some publishing houses still run limited prints of their books, usually with wood sourced from privately owned acres of forest in Canada. Most of the forests in the world that aren't privately owned are protected by international treaties, some of the few treaties that no country has sought to violate. After the Cataclysm of the '50s, people started to take climate change a little more seriously, and with the introduction of stable large scale cloning technologies in the '80s, we started bringing back a lot of extinct species - and part of bringing those species back was making sure they had habitats. So there are giant swathes of land now, across the world, that are internationally protected lands: the Amazon in South America, a portion of the Himalayas in Asia, the Serengeti in Africa, the Outback in Australia, almost all of the island of Madagascar, and the Great Plains in North America. No one can cut down trees or kill animals in these areas, with a few exceptions for religious rites - those require licenses, though.

I make my way back to a secluded corner of the library, still visible from the entrance but shadowed enough that no one can see the tattoo on my neck, a dead giveaway that I'm not a real person. But I  _ am _ a real person. I need to remind myself of that- but Dench is making that harder. If someone tells you the same thing enough times, you start to wonder if their words have some truth. 

As I wait there, I start to spiral.  _ This is a bad idea. He was just some guy who put up with my bullshit, he probably wants nothing to do with me. What if I read his mannerisms wrong? He seemed like he was warming up to me, but what if that was all in my head? I'm fucking delusional, he's no gonna show, he's… _

I'm snapped out of my spiral when I see Mac enter. Okay, good first step. He looks around for a moment, then he sees me. Too late to turn back now. His face flashes from confusion to intrigue and then expressionless. He approaches cautiously but purposefully, and takes a seat in the same area as me.

"So, you're the one who sent the creepy texts?" He asks, a hint of exasperation in his voice.

I nod cautiously. "I didn't mean to come off as creepy, but I figured if you knew it was me you wouldn't bother responding. I don't care if you never want to hear from me again after this, but I am suffocating in that facility… you're the only person I've met who hasn't treated me like a broken machine or a whiny toddler, and I just… need a break. From the scared interns and the compliant employees and the asshole running that shitshow. So you can leave if you want, I just need someone to at least pretend to see me as a human for a little bit."

_ I should've written that beforehand, that was utter dogshit. He's probably not convinced, he was probably going to leave no matter what after he saw it was me, and I deserve it. I deserve to have no one… _

"Alright." He says after a few moments of consideration, snapping me out of yet another spiral. "You're no longer under the supervision of the company I work for, we can hang out."

_Under the supervision of._ _Not owned by._ I question for a moment whether that was a conscious choice of words or not, but I'm grateful for it nonetheless. 

"I've always wondered," he starts, "what was it like? Before the Cataclysm?"

I take a moment to ponder the question, digging up the scattered fragments of memory I have about the state of the planet back then. "Well, in New York where Matt grew up, it was smoggy as all hell. He moved when he was 15 because his parents were worried about the smog and the rising shoreline. They ended up in Chicago, and while it was still smoggy - you couldn't see the stars at night, even during a blackout - it wasn't as smoggy as the big coastal cities. Beaches were a lot more popular before, Greenland used to be a lot icier, Siberia used to be quasi-habitable, the Caspian Sea was a bit smaller… I can't think of anything else right now." As I start to blank, and I realize that Mac appears to be listening intently. "Are many people interested in how life was before? It mostly sucked ass, honestly."

"I spent a lot of time as a little kid reading about what life was like before." He sighs a little before continuing. "Let's just say I didn't have great parents, and books were a good distraction."

I'm slightly taken aback by how open he's being.  _ There's no way this isn't some sort of trap, right?  _

I do my best to push away all of my intrusive thoughts for the rest of the hour or so we spend there at the library, which is difficult but not impossible. He asks more questions about Before, and I'm glad to answer them. Most of it has been written down anyways, it's not like I have any super hidden secrets, and even if I did, most of his memories are still fuzzy in my head. I've been able to remember more as time goes on, and it's a fun game I've been playing with myself to try and construct a timeline of memories in my Cortex only using context clues from the memories. The air is stiff with tension, and we both tread lightly for most of the meeting, but it's a nice change from the fear and anxiety that usually accompanies talking to people.

After half an hour we agree to part ways, with the promise that we'd try to meet up again sometime soon. I take a moment to prepare myself for the shitstorm waiting for me when I get back- by the time I'm back there it will have been two and a half hours of me being totally MIA. Maybe I'll hide in a tree on the edge of the compound until someone finds me up there.


End file.
